UP...UP....AND AWAY !!!

I'm not quite forty yet, although sometimes i feel ninety. My bones creak like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, except he runs on oil where as i run on wine!!! I get out of bed, trying to be quiet and the noise that my body makes is worse than the floor boards. I finally make it to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and gasp, it's my Mother staring back at me...(mum if you are reading this, please don't be offended, but i'm not meant to look like you just yet, a younger version yes...). I realise that no amount of creams are going to help with the engravings on my face, whatever they say. A quick check for grey/white hairs, relief sets in, thank god i don't have to worry about that yet!!! It's bad enough having to have my eyelashes/brows dyed each month so i don't look like and albino, could not afford the hairdressers too.

Over cornflakes (Fitness or Special K)....i try to camoflage the bags/dark circles and the occasional adult acne breakout, whilst hysterical daughter tries everything possible to delay schooltime. Usually by then i'm well over the recommended dosage of rescue remedy, and I am so busy trying to get them dressed, clean and tidy, that i walk out the door with toothpaste still on my chin and bedhead hair, sometimes with the ponytail from the day before, and the day before that.


AND no matter how organised i am (or try to be), whilst half running and dragging the kids after me, i have to do it all backwards as i've usally forgotton something, or lost my keys/purse/tissues/phone....!!! and of course MY HEAD!!!





It's no wonder you want to punch the air/do a silly dance once they are behind those school walls. The relief the emphoria!!! The fact that you love your children 'more than space', but you really need some of your own......Then you get in the car and drive, the silence is deafening, the windows down, the breeze in your hair and you can sing...and it's not Old McDonald....!!! You drive on auto-pilot, so busy thinking about what you're going to cook today


a) something quick and easy.....as you are going out for coffee


b) something quick and easy...as you are going to be at home cleaning/on Facebook

(all fresh of course, and healthy....!!!)


that you realise you are outside your front door and you've forgotton to stop at the supermarket, butcher, greengrocer....baker!!!....so off you go again!!! Back to the butchers where the men are talking about (the football results), the greengrocers (where the women are talking about the delights they are serving up at lunch time) and the bakers...where any gossip goes!!!



You finally make it home (again), laden down with the bags and the receipts...which of course are piling up and taking over your drawers....cupboards...and...houses!!! What we are actually going to do with them who knows, another aim from the Greek Government to make sure nobody is fiddling them??? I even got a petrol receipt yesterday, the first time ever.....!!!...I'm not sure our accountant is going to be too happy when i give him the suitcase of receipts i've collected so far....and thats just milk and yoghurts for a family of 6.....!!!



PART 2...will follow....Coffee Mornings....Afternoon frenzies and BEDTIME!!!



SO enough of my mornings....lets talk about....???



What't in the news??? Ummm again scandals, politics and possibly World War 3. I sat watching a debate on Greek TV last night comparing the Prime Minister of Germany, to Adolf Hitler....!!!

They've really take the Acropolis comment to another context....!!!



FASHION bold colours are in so, avoid block and go for patterns if you are on the larger side, helps confuse the eye...It's that time of year when you wished you started your diet earlier, because it won't be long until we have to get our arms and legs out. Scary experience, and daunting for a few days, and you feel completly naked without layers and lycra!!!



ITS 25th MARCH TOMORROW - INDEPENDEANCE DAY IN GREECE

(It's also a religious day too - Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, Evangelismos Day)....
A National Holiday, on this day in 1821, the Greek Flag was hoisted in defiance to the Turks.
It is a day where there are church services, parades and wreath laying in memory of those who lost their lives for their country.

Today in the schools children sang about the Revolution, poems were read, and history is remembered!!!
My daughter read a poem today, a comment was made by the ladies in front about a boy wearing short sleeves....(it was a beautiful day)....how 'dropeeeeee'!!!! (terrible) it was, my daughter was also the other one....the fact they only told us the day before what they needed to wear wasn't exactly ideal.....it was lucky i found something white!!! (which didn't stay white for very long, must get some Vanish!!!)

I'm hoping to get the other computer working as now it's officially Easter Holidays in Greece, and i doubt i'll get much chance to be blogging....far too many things to do and make!!! Traditional cheese pies, biscuits, dying eggs....and of course Hot Cross Buns!!! Will cover all the reasons why they do this in my next blog, all i know is that usually my next door neighbour brings me the cheese pies, which i manage to pass off as my own.....the biscuits we've made and eaten several times so there is never any left by Easter, and the eggs i've not only dyed every wooden spoon in the house red, my hands, and usually every saucepan in the cupboard!!!

I LOVE EASTER IN GREECE.....It really is wonderful....(especially if you try and forget about all those fluffy lambs and sheep you've been feeding for the last few months)...that you'll be serving for Easter Sunday. I always make Lasanga....!!! A big cow seems soooo much less vunerable!!!

Lots of Love

Tracey XXX